


Moonstruck

by BlueMoonHound, Capitola



Series: hide and seek [8]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, Panic, The Hunger, Unrequited Crush, graphic depictions of the hunger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 14:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13742856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMoonHound/pseuds/BlueMoonHound, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capitola/pseuds/Capitola
Summary: Lucretia gasps, blinking awake. She looks shaken, pale, and frightened. She lifts her head off the desk and blinks at Kravitz, unfocused.“Lucretia? Are you alright?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Secret, Smaller Author expects you shall be pleased that they have added something to the series that isn't porn.

First and foremost, Kravitz is just very glad to be off work. He has another meeting with Lucretia today, and no matter what happens then, he knows he's going to leave happy. They've even spent a few of these just chatting, which was, surprisingly, the best feeling. It's humanizing in a way Kravitz hasn't experienced in years. (She still insists on offering him sex, but he has the right to refuse, if he's not in the mood, and she doesn't ever push the matter.)

He cuts into Lucretia's office, closing up the rift behind him. Lucretia's got her head down on her desk. He's never seen her do _that_ before.

“Lucretia?”

She doesn't reply. He determines that she must be asleep. Kravitz pulls out the guest chair, puts on some flesh, and sits down.

She looks, well, exhausted. He supposes that Lucretia looks exhausted quite frequently, but her face has defaulted to a worried expression in sleep, and it doesn't do anything to negate the bags under her eyes or the sallow look to her skin.

Ten minutes pass. Kravitz would really like to make her a cup of tea-- he can warm it back up if it goes cold, but he doesn't know where she keeps her tea.

It's not that Kravitz hasn't been forced to sit and wait for hours. He has. It's rather peaceful for the first thirty minutes, just watching Lucretia breathe, but he's starting to feel like this might be intrusive. She did invite him at this time, and he doesn't want to wake her, but watching someone sleep is a little uncomfortably voyeuristic. An hour passes before Kravitz can make himself get up, as quiet as possible, and reach for his scythe. Just as he does, Lucretia whimpers.

Kravitz spins around. He knows he doesn't know as much about Lucretia as he'd like to, but he's never heard her make that noise. She's shivering, quiet, tears beading in her eyes, and she's still fast asleep. Her breath quickens, and she still doesn't wake up. Kravitz feels a lump form in his throat. Should he wake her? He doesn't remember when it's a bad idea to wake someone up-- was that sleepwalking, or nightmares? When she whines, Kravitz can't help but reach out and shake her shoulder.

Lucretia gasps, blinking awake. She looks shaken, pale, and frightened. She lifts her head off the desk and blinks at Kravitz, unfocused.

“Lucretia? Are you alright?” He sits back down in the desk chair.

Lucretia blinks sleep from her eyes and takes in her surroundings. “Did I – did I fall asleep? I'm – I'm so sorry, I… I didn't mean to… What – what time is it?”

“Nine o'clock,” Kravitz says.

“Oh-- oh dear, I'm so- so sorry, Kravitz, I – I forget myself,” Her voice is thick. “I didn't mean to fall asleep, I'm just so - I'm so tired, I'm so...” Her breath hitches. “Do you still want --”

“Are you up for that? You seem rather unhappy, Lucretia.”

“Kravitz,” she wavers. “It doesn't matter if I'm up for it, we're – this is for you.” She rubs at her eyes, taking shuddering, gasping breaths that don't seem to be helping her reign in her tears.

“Lucretia. I'm insulted if you think we're still doing this just for _my_ sake.” He leans forward and hovers. “Can I touch you?”

“Y-yes,” she says, and he runs his hands down her arms, pushing up her sleeves.

“You can cry, you know,” Kravitz keeps his tone as calm as possible. Lucretia hiccups.

“I'm so- I'm so scared,” she gasps into her hands.

Kravitz fixes her sleeves and stands. He walks around the desk and lifts her out of her chair, settling her in his lap. Lucretia clings to his shirt, her head buried in the nape of his neck. The way his ear is squashed against his face serves as a reminder that she's a decent amount taller than him. He runs his hand down her warm back, feeling her body shiver under his fingers. Lucretia cries for a while longer, warming Kravitz's body up slowly with her own body heat. Eventually, though, she's pretty much all cried out, and she sits up.

A little part of Kravitz wants to pull her close again. With her pressed against his body, he can almost imagine her heartbeat is his own.

“I should get back to work,” Lucretia says, standing unsteadily. “I'll give you whatever you want if – if you want me to, or, you can stay, I suppose, but...”

“Lucretia, I don't think you should go back to work,” Kravitz says.

He can see her kneading at her forehead even while she's facing the wrong direction. “I, well, I, I have to, I have to keep working. I'm so – so close to – I need to finish what I _started_.”

“You need a break,” Kravitz says, standing. “You need to sleep.”

“I slept for a full hour.”

“Lucretia, you're human. If my calculations are correct, you need approximately seven to eight hours of sleep a night. Every night. Do you even get three?”

“….I….”

“Come on, I'll – show me where the tea is, and I'll make you some chamomile, and I'll stick around if you'd like. But you _need_ to sleep. Please, Lucretia. Sleep, for me, can you do that?”

She spins around, a miffed expression on her face, but then sags. “I don't think I can sleep alone,” She admits.

“You don't have to.”

“I don't want to impose.”

“ _Lucretia_ .” A little rougher than he meant that to come out. “Lucretia, this isn't just about me. Not everything in this relationship has to be about me, okay? I care about you, and I want you to be okay. Actually, legitimately _okay_.” He puts his hands on her upper arms, gently. “Please, I want you to take care of yourself.”

Lucretia sighs, and leads Kravitz to a little kitchen off her bedroom. It's quaint, but he can see where the kettle and the tea is.

“You go take a shower. This should be ready when you get out,” Kravitz says.

“You're too kind,” Lucretia sighs.

Kravitz catches her by the shoulder. He presses a chaste kiss to her lips. He wants to tell her how much he loves her, but he doesn't know if it's appropriate. He doesn't know if it fits their relationship, and he's definitely not sure if it's appropriate to spring it on her right now. She needs love, but, maybe not from him. “Go wash up.”

Lucretia stands still for a few seconds, processing the kiss, then leaves the room. Kravitz puts the kettle on the stove and fishes the Chamomile tea down from the top shelf. He gets two mugs, because honestly, he wouldn't mind feeling a little warm on the inside, tonight. He leans against the counter, listening to the shower turn on. Lucretia sings a song in a language he doesn't recognize, her voice wavering like she's still on the verge of tears. Her voice is both rich and breathy. (Kravitz loves Lucretia's voice.)

The kettle starts whistling and Kravitz returns his attention to the tea, pouring water into both the cups. He sips his own, mostly to test the temperature, as he hears the water turn off in the other room. She stops singing the song as she puts her clothes on, and Kravitz's chest aches. When she comes out of the bathroom, she has her day clothes bundled up into her robe, and she's wearing plain, red silk pyjamas.

“You look good in red,” Kravitz comments, handing her tea.

“I don't wear it out for work reasons,” Lucretia says, “But it's one of my favorite colors.”

He gives her another little kiss, this one on the nose. “You're beautiful,” he says. “Bed?”

“Bed,” Lucretia sighs.

They enter her bedroom, and Lucretia says goodnight to the jellyfish on the other side of the room before climbing into her bed.

Kravitz slides under the covers, pulls them over both of them, and wraps his arms around Lucretia's waist. “Is this too cold?” he asks.

“No, you're, you're pretty warm right now, actually,” Lucretia says.

“Oh,” He breathes. “Good.”

Kravitz hasn't felt this warm and safe in centuries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia sings Nel Blu by Floex and Musetta in the shower. It’s Italian.


	2. Chapter 2

The sensation of being devoured, mind and body and soul alike, is, Kravitz admits, far from a pleasant one. It's in fact the exact opposite of a pleasant feeling, and he'd like it to stop – but it won't stop, it can't stop, he's choking on the inky, shining blackness around him, the endless tasteless flavor of the hungry being consuming him. Being, or beings? He's not sure. He can feel souls in here, but they are so many and so crowded that there's no way he could reap them. He can't even touch them, they're so close that they're under his skin, inside his mind, leeching off his soul. He convulses, chokes again, knowing it's pointless to struggle at all but struggling anyway.

He must still have some tie to his mortality, because right now, he's acting much like a mortal. Tears bead in his unseeing eyes and his fingers twitch against the texture of the nothingness. And oh does it have texture! It feels like polished gemstone, and that feeling crushes him from every angle. It feels like being inside a transplanar mirror. Is this what it's like to be in the very essence of a plane? It must be. The thing devouring him, it's big enough to be the whole planar system. It's big enough to eat everything. It's disgusting.

A few times, he manages to pull free. He sees Taako, at one point, but he doesn't understand what he's looking at before he's tugged back under by sludge and gripping fingers.

He starts to give up, after what feels like days. There's an ache in his body, an ache in everything about him, and he doesn't have the energy to do this much longer.

But then, he remembers  _ Lucretia _ .

Lucretia, who lost all her friends to a war she ended.

Lucretia, who died ten times, and wanted to die again, but kept going. Who gave up pleasure to keep going, because she believed in the importance of the universe.

She believes in the importance of the universe more than she believes in the importance of herself, even though they're essentially hand-in-hand.

Kravitz had heard her describe the hunger. She says she's been eaten by it before. Said. He doesn't know that he'll ever talk to her again, not after this. If he survives, because it's very much an if, will he be able to face this? Face the world again? Will he have the energy to keep existing?

But Kravitz can think of Lucretia, and gather all the strength left within him, and summon his scythe, and  _ reap _ his way back to the surface. It hurts like hell, and he realizes that he's reaping thousands, millions of souls in each blow-- and it hurts so, so much, because every time he does this at least half of those souls pass through his own, and souls aren't meant to touch each other. By the time he breaches the surface of the endless glittering lake, he's woozy and nauseous and can hardly tell top from bottom, but at least – at  _ least _ – he's still conscious. Still, for lack of a better term, alive.

He fights his way to shore, because – and thank everything, thank the Raven Queen, thank the entire pantheon, there is still a shore for him to work to. He scrambles towards the stockade, cutting away the last encroaching strings of the hunger, and collapses against the shore for an indeterminable amount of time, waiting for his strength to return. He gasps and coughs, his soul unhappy with the mistreatment it's had to endure in the past-- well. Then.

When he finally can sit up, the first thing he does is attempt to rift his way to – anywhere. He tries the celestial plane when the prime material doesn't work, then the ethereal, but that doesn't work either – he even, in a fit of panic, attempts to rift to the astral plane, even though he's already there. He tries them all again, but it's like his scythe is trying to cut through brick. His arms are aching and his head is pounding. Finally, he just sighs. He's not going to get into any of the other planes. Not right now.

Instead, Kravitz prepares to call his queen. Of course, he doesn't do this often, it's a bit of a last resort thing – the Raven Queen does not like to be disturbed. This is definitely a time of crisis, though, and he's sure – no, he's hoping – she won't mind. It's not a complicated ritual, especially for a reaper, but when she doesn't respond, he panics, checking over his work-- no, that's right, that's right, everything's right, why won't she answer? Kravitz shudders, sitting back against the outer wall of the Stockade, and watches the hungry tendrils of the monster that had absorbed him. It's up in the sky, too, he realizes. He's not so sure why it hasn't absorbed him and the stockade with him, yet. Might as well. At this point, there's no reason why he should still be alive. Or, conscious. Real. There's no reason why Kravitz should still be real.

_ She won't answer. _

Kravitz tries the ritual one more time. This time, he forces his essence into it, and it's like hitting a  _ wall _ . It's like – it's like his bond to the Raven Queen has been severed, blocked off in some way. His face hits the sand. He can feel every particle, every individual granule of its texture against his cheek. Kravitz pushes the feeling away and forces himself back to the wall. He slides down it and stares out at his inevitable demise.

_ What am I supposed to do? _

Nothing, he supposes, and he hiccups. Just wait for hands, for glistening, cold hands to drag him back down. Just wait for his soul to dissolve and his reality to cease.

For the first time in centuries, Kravitz weeps. Quiet sobs escalate til he's shuddering, his face buried in his hands. Nothing's right anymore. Nothing's okay anymore. He can't believe Lucretia's done this before, and oh gods, Lucretia, Taako, is the – is the Prime Material plane okay? Is anywhere okay? What if everything has been consumed, and nothing exists any longer?

Kravitz wants to hug his boyfriend and cry into his shoulder and then lie down, arms wrapped tight around his ribcage, and fall asleep. He wants to breathe in the lavender scent of his hair. Instead, he shivers on a little island in an endless, glittering black sea.

He knows what the hunger is, objectively: It's a plane, it's a man who fell to pieces and ate everything up. It's so much harder to think of things objectively when you're dealing with them head on.

He knows Lucretia has survived this, though. She lived. He can keep going, too. He can keep going. He can cross his fingers that she and Taako are okay, and that the prime material plane isn't subsumed in dark sludge, because maybe, if they're okay, he'll have someone waiting for him on the other side.

Kravitz lets out a breath, wipes tears from his eyes, and pictures Taako rushing towards him with open arms. 


End file.
